The day passed slowly.  At 7 p.m. very heavy pressure developed, with twisting strains that racked the ship fore and aft.  The butts of planking were opened four and five inches on the starboard side, and at the same time we could see from the bridge that the ship was bending like a bow under titanic pressure.  Almost like a living creature, she resisted the forces that would crush her; but it was a one-sided battle.  Millions of tons of ice pressed inexorably upon the little ship that had dared the challenge of the Antarctic.  The ‘Endurance’ was now leaking badly, and at 9 p.m.  I gave the order to lower boats, gear, provisions, and sledges to the floe, and move them to the flat ice a little way from the ship.  The working of the ice closed the leaks slightly at midnight, but all hands were pumping all night.  A strange occurrence was the sudden appearance of eight emperor penguins from a crack 100 yds. away at the moment when the pressure upon the ship was at its climax.  They walked a little way towards us, halted, and after a few ordinary calls proceeded to utter weird cries that sounded like a dirge for the ship.  None of us had ever before heard the emperors utter any other than the most simple calls or cries, and the effect of this concerted effort was almost startling.

Then came a fateful day—­Wednesday, October 27.  The position was lat. 69° 5´ S., long. 51° 30´ W. The temperature was -8.5° Fahr., a gentle southerly breeze was blowing and the sun shone in a clear sky.

“After long months of ceaseless anxiety and strain, after times when hope beat high and times when the outlook was black indeed, the end of the ‘Endurance’ has come.  But though we have been compelled to abandon the ship, which is crushed beyond all hope of ever being righted, we are alive and well, and we have stores and equipment for the task that lies before us.  The task is to reach land with all the members of the Expedition.  It is hard to write what I feel.  To a sailor his ship is more than a floating home, and in the ‘Endurance’ I had centred ambitions, hopes, and desires.  Now, straining and groaning, her timbers cracking and her wounds gaping, she is slowly giving up her sentient life at the very outset of her career.  She is crushed and abandoned after drifting more than 570 miles in a north-westerly direction during the 281 days since she became locked in the ice.  The distance from the point where she became beset to the place where she now rests mortally hurt in the grip of the floes is 573 miles, but the total drift through all observed positions has been 1186 miles, and probably we actually covered more than 1500 miles.  We are now 346 miles from Paulet Island, the nearest point where there is any possibility of finding food and shelter.  A small hut built there by the Swedish expedition in 1902 is filled with stores left by the Argentine relief ship.  I know all about those stores, for I purchased them in London on behalf of the Argentine Government when they asked me to equip the relief expedition.  The distance to the nearest barrier west of us is about 180 miles, but a party going there would still be about 360 miles from Paulet Island and there would be no means of sustaining life on the barrier.  We could not take from here food enough for the whole journey; the weight would be too great.